This had been a pretty place when they came here, like much of the country Orm had seen before, with sheep flocking in the well-kept fields, and bright new parish churches shining in the autumn sun. Now the sheep were driven off, the farms robbed and ruined, the people killed, even the churches burned out; this corner of England already smelled of blood and smoke, like Brittany and Maine and Anjou.

Riding with Normans, you got used to such things. Orm walked away, looking for the leaders.

Under the grey light of the pre-dawn English sky, William attended mass. Officiated by his half-brother Odo, a bishop in chain mail, it was held in the open so that as many of William’s men as possible could see him and join in his prayers. William had a reliquary around his neck, a gold box containing the saint’s finger on which Harold had sworn his broken oath in Bayeux.

At the end of the service William, stocky, bristling, stood before the restless ranks of warriors in their mail coats. ‘Do you expect a speech? You won’t get one from me. You all know what’s what. We’re stuck here, far from home. Death or victory, those are the only choices today. But if we win you will all soon be drowning in gold and women. Follow me, and it will be so. Let’s get it done,’ said the Bastard.

The men growled like bears.

William’s nobles quickly formed the men into a column. Orm heard it was going to take two hours’ marching to get to Harold’s supposed muster point. Before the sun was up they were gathering on the road, the infantry in their mail coats, their shields on their arms and their swords in their sheaths on their backs, the archers and crossbowmen and slingshotters with their complicated gear. They stuck to their national groupings and their lords, the Normans with William, and the Flemish and Frankish, the Bretons and the men from Maine marching separately. The cavalry would ride beside the road. Scouts on fast horses set off, riding ahead to work out the lie of the land.

As the infantry began to march, shuffling slowly before they got their rhythm, they sang psalms in Latin. Their thousands of voices, joining together, rose up over the ruins of the burned-out town and the ruined farms beyond. If there were any English left alive they did not show themselves.